Lelia Doolan is an Irish film director and producer. Lelia worked worked in RTÉ in the 1960s on The Riordans and 7 Days, a forerunner of Primetime. She resigned over RTÉ policies, along with Bob Quinn, in 1969, and she moved to print journalism and became artistic director of the Abbey and Peacock theatres from 1971 to 1973. Lelia lectured in communications, worked with adult literacy schemes in Belfast, was first chairwoman of the Irish Film Board and has been a prominent defender of LGBT rights. She was involved in opposing both the Burren Interpretative Centre and the Corrib Gas pipeline. Lelia’s documentary in 2011 Bernadette: Notes on a Political Journey about Bernadette Devlin screened at the 2011 BFI London Film Festival.

Dr Miriam Haughton is the Director of Postgraduate Programmes in Drama, Theatre and Performance at NUI Galway. She is the author of Staging Trauma: Bodies in Shadow (Palgrave, 2018), the co-edited collection Radical Contemporary Theatre Practices by Women in Ireland (Carysfort, 2015), and multiple journal articles and book chapters. Miriam established the Feminist Storytelling Working Group at NUI Galway, sits on the Executive of the Irish Society for Theatre Research, and is a supporting member of the National Women's Council of Ireland.

Susie Hunt is the great, great granddaughter of Lady Gregory. Currently in her final year at Trinity College Dublin, she will graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Film Studies in May 2019. Passionate about writing and directing films, she spent the last year working in the Los Angeles entertainment industry, where she hopes to return some day! Susie grew up in East Sussex but has lived in Dublin since 2015.

Dr. Adrian Paterson is Lecturer in English at the National University of Ireland, Galway. A graduate of Worcester College, Oxford, and Trinity College, Dublin, his IRC fellowship at the Moore Institute at NUI Galway was entitled Perfect Pitch: Music in Irish Poetry from Moore to Muldoon, while Words for Music: W.B. Yeats and Musical Sense is forthcoming. Reflecting his interest in artistic interactions and the culture of the West of Ireland, he is a member of the Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society, and is the curator of Yeats and the West, an exhibition featuring the work of J.M. Synge, Augusta Gregory, and Jack B. Yeats, on display at Thoor Ballylee.

Dr. James Pethica teaches at Williams College, where he specializes in Irish Studies, Drama, and Modernism. He received his B.A. and D.Phil. from Oxford University. His many publications include two volumes in the Cornell Yeats series; Yeats: A Norton Critical Edition; and Lady Gregory's Diaries 1892-1902. A former Director of the Yeats International Summer School, he is preparing the authorized biography of Lady Gregory for Oxford University Press.

Dr. Robyn Rowland AO, an Irish-Australian citizen, lives in both countries and regularly works in Turkey. Author of 13 books, 10 of poetry, her latest books are Mosaics from the Map (Doire Press, Galway, 2018) and her bi-lingual This Intimate War Gallipoli/Çanakkale 1915–İçli Dışlı Bir Savaş:Gelibolu/Çanakkale 1915 (Spinifex Press, Australia, 2018), Turkish trans. Mehmet Ali Çelikel. Robyn’s poetry appears in international journals and over 40 anthologies. Her work is on film at the National Irish Poetry Archives, James Joyce Library, UCD. Previously Professor of Social Inquiry, she was made an Officer in the Order of Australia in 1996 for national and international contributions to higher education and women’s health.

Dr. Melissa Sihra is Head of Drama at Trinity College Dublin and Assistant Professor of Drama. Editor of Women in Irish Drama: A Century ofAuthorship and Representation (Palgrave Macmillan), co-editor (with Paul Murphy) of The Dreaming Body: Contemporary Irish Theatre (Colin Smythe Ltd & Oxford University Press) and co-editor (with Pirkko Koski) of The Global Meets the Local in Performance (Cambridge Scholars Press), her monograph Marina Carr: Pastures of the Unknown will be published in October 2018 by Palgrave Macmillan. She is former President of the ‘Irish Society for Theatre Research’ (2011-2015) In 2016 she delivered a day-long workshop on the life and works of Augusta Gregory at the Abbey Theatre and was honoured to Chair the Lady Gregory Yeats Autumn Gathering.

Colin Smythe graduated from Trinity College in 1963. Three years later, he started his publishing company, Colin Smythe Ltd., specialising in Irish literature, with books by or about authors such as W.B.Yeats, Lady Gregory, J.M.Synge, George Moore, G.W. Russell (better known by his pen-name AE), Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde, Oliver St. John Gogarty, James Stephens, and William Carleton, and also on subjects such as the Irish epic myths, the fairy faith, ghosts, folklore, heraldry, orders of knighthood, diplomacy, politics, trout fishing, and parapsychology. He also is agent for the literary estates of a number of Irish authors, including George Moore, Lady Gregory and Oliver St. John Gogarty. He met Terry Pratchett in 1968, published his first five novels, and became Terry's agent in 1987. In 1998, he received an Hon. LLD from Dublin University (Trinity College) for services to Irish Literature. He is a Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London.

The Curlew Theatre Company perform ‘plays-for-voices’. Devised, written, and directed by Eamon Grennan, and performed by Tegolin Knowland and Sean Coyne.

Biographies 2017

Joe Duffy presents one of Ireland's leading radio shows Liveline on RTÉ Radio One. Liveline is firmly established as a national institution as listeners tune and call into the show to ‘Talk to Joe’.

In 2015, Joe brought Liveline to our TV screens with Liveline:Call Back on RTÉ One. In this show, Joe looks back at some of the standout stories; some with heart-breaking and others with heart-warming outcomes.

Joe released his award-winning and best-selling book Children of the Rising with Hachette in 2015. This is the first ever account of the young lives violently lost during the week of the 1916 Rising: long-forgotten and never commemorated. Previously, he released his autobiography Just Joe in 2011. He also writes for the Mail on Sunday.

Margaret Farrell is a great-grandniece of Lady Gregory. Her great-grandfather, Francis Fitz Adelm (Frank), was Augusta's younger brother with whom she was very close, describing him as a kind boy with a "....dancing light in his eye". A JP and architect, in 1889, Frank designed the Kiltartan National School, now the Kiltartan Gregory Museum. An amateur family historian, Margaret is currently researching Robert Gregory's journey as innovator and aviator from the west of Ireland to Padua, Italy.

Christopher Griffin’s education began at St. Joseph’s Convent and Our Lady’s College, Gort, including on the site of today’s Lady Gregory Hotel. His family’s painting business included work at Coole Park, where Lady Gregory recorded conversations with his grandfather, Christy Griffin. Christopher Griffin studied at Trinity College and University College in Dublin and the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee. He has published many articles and theatre reviews.

For 28 years, Griffin taught humanities mostly to working adults in Washington, DC. For eight years, he was a lecturer at The George Washington University, where he taught Irish poetry, drama, and fiction. For over 25 years at Politics and Prose bookstore in DC, he has led numerous classes on various interests, including Irish literature, Shakespeare, literary Washington, and film. He was a study leader on ten Smithsonian Journeys, including “The Emerald Isle” and transatlantic cruises. He has also lectured on Irish literature at Smithsonian Associates.

Ben Kennedy is the great grandson of Lady Gregory and the grandson of Robert Gregory. He finished his schooling at St. Columba's College, Rathfarnham, Dublin in December 1959 and emigrated to the north east of Scotland in January 1960. Ben attended Aberdeen University School of Agriculture from 1962 – 1965. Since then, he has worked in the pig breeding and rearing industry in Denmark, England and Scotland. Since 2012, he considers himself a "retired swineherd". Other than his family, Ben’s interest lies in Agricultural History, particularly regarding the lot of the labourer up to W.W 1. Some say that he was born with a wooden spoon in his mouth!

Geoffrey O’Byrne White is a great-grandnephew of Lady Gregory. He commissioned the fine bronze bust of Lady Gregory, by Galway sculptor John Coll, now exhibited in Coole Park Visitor Centre. Like her son Robert, Geoffrey is an airman and was a pilot in the Irish Air Corps, where he became head of the transport arrangements for members of the Irish government. He then entered the civil aviation industry and, as CEO, was responsible for the success of the City Jet airline. A director of the Irish Aviation Authority, Geoffrey is a well-known and respected consultant to the aviation industry world-wide. An enthusiastic sailor, his sponsorship of Cruinniú na mBád has contributed greatly to its success in Kinvara.

Kevin O'Driscoll served as Senior Vice President Asia Pacific and International Training at daa International until his retirement in 2016. He began his career as a Secondary Teacher and worked as a public service Trade Union official for 20 years. He led a Political Party Development Programme for the UNDP sponsored programme in Indonesia from 1998-2000. Kevin held several roles in Irish Aviation and was the Human Resource and Public Affairs Adviser ... in the Dublin Port Company. He also held roles in Government from 1992 to 1997, including Programme Manager Irish Government at the Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht. In this latter role, Kevin was responsible for investigating the presence of the Hugh Lane paintings on the Lusitania and the subsequent exclusion order which was placed on the sunken ship. He has a keen interest in aviation and has held a private pilot’s licence for over 30 years with 20 years as a Class 1 Flight Instructor. Kevin has been a Director of Irish Aviation Authority since September 2013.

Melissa Sihra is Assistant Professor of Drama and Theatre Studies at Trinity College Dublin and editor of Women in Irish Drama: A Century ofAuthorship and Representation (Palgrave Macmillan), co-editor (with Paul Murphy) of The Dreaming Body: Contemporary Irish Theatre (Colin Smythe Ltd & Oxford University Press) and co-editor (with Pirkko Koski) of The Global Meets the Local in Performance (Cambridge Scholars Press). She is completing a monograph on contemporary Irish playwright Marina Carr and researches and teaches in the fields of Irish theatre, Women in Performance, Playwriting, Feminism, gender and sexuality. She is former President of the ‘Irish Society for Theatre Research’ (2011-2015) In 2016 she delivered a day-long workshop on the life and works of Augusta Gregory at the Abbey Theatre’s and was honoured to Chair the Lady Gregory Yeats Autumn Gathering.

Colin Smythe graduated from Trinity College in 1963. Three years later, he started his publishing company, Colin Smythe Ltd., specialising in Irish literature, with books by or about authors such as W.B.Yeats, Lady Gregory, J.M.Synge, George Moore, G.W. Russell (better known by his pen-name AE), Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde, Oliver St. John Gogarty, James Stephens, and William Carleton, and also on subjects such as the Irish epic myths, the fairy faith, ghosts, folklore, heraldry, orders of knighthood, diplomacy, politics, trout fishing, and parapsychology. He also is agent for the literary estates of a number of Irish authors, including George Moore, Lady Gregory and Oliver St. John Gogarty. He met Terry Pratchett in 1968, published his first five novels, and became Terry's agent in 1987. In 1998, he received an Hon. LLD from Dublin University (Trinity College) for services to Irish Literature. He is a Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London.

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Biographies 2016

Ray Burke is a Galwegian and graduate of NUI Galway. A journalist in Dublin and London for almost 40 years, he was news editor of the Irish Press from 1991 to 1995. He is the author of Press Delete: the decline and fall of the Irish Press (Currach Press, 2005) and has written on James Joyce for RTE News, The National Library of Ireland, The Connacht Tribune and Galway City Tribune. He has been a news editor at RTE since 1996 and the broadcaster’s Chief News Editor since 2007. His new book is called Joyce County: Galway and James Joyce (Currach Press, 2016)

Catriona Crowe is Head of Special Projects at the National Archives of Ireland. She is manager of the Irish Census Online Project, which has placed the 1901 and 1911 Irish censuses online free of charge over the last 5 years. She is an editor of Documents on Irish Foreign Policy which published its seventh volume, covering 1941-1945, in 2010. She is editor of Dublin 1911 (Royal Irish Academy, 2011). She is Vice President of the Irish Labour Society and a former President of the Women’s History Association. She is Chairperson of The Irish Theatre Institute and is a member of The Royal Irish Academy.

The Curlew Theatre Company – Tegolin Knowland, Sean Coyne and Eamon Grennan - perform The Muse and Mr. Yeats, one of the ‘plays-for-voices’ devised, written, and directed by Eamon. Each of these takes a crucial element in Irish history and explores it in depth. ‘The Muse and Mr. Yeats’presents, one by one, the various women with whom W.B. Yeats was romantically involved. It sketches a portrait of Yeats-in-love. Eamon Grennan from Dublin, taught for many years at Vassar College and in the graduate writing programs of Columbia University and NYU. His most recent collections are There Now (Gallery Press, Ireland), Out of Sight: New & Selected Poems (Graywolf, USA) and But the Body (Gallery Press, Ireland). He has translated the poems of Leopardi (Dedalus, Ireland; and Princeton), and co-translated (with Rachel Kitzinger) Oedipus at Colonus (Oxford). For the past few years, he has been working on “plays for voices,” which have been performed in Ireland and the United States. He lives in Poughkeepsie and in Renvyle, Connemara.

Lucy McDiarmid is Marie Frazee-Baldassarre Professor of English at Montclair State University. The recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, she is the author or editor of seven books. Her scholarly interest in cultural politics, especially quirky, colourful, suggestive episodes, is exemplified by The Irish Art of Controversy as well as by Poets and the Peacock Dinner. She is also a former president of the American Conference for Irish Studies. Her most recent book, At Home in the Revolution: what women said and did in 1916, was Foreword Reviews’ 2015 Indiefab bronze winner for the history book of the year.

Cecily O’Neill is well known for her work in drama education and theatre, and is the author of several influential books in the field. She works mostly in the UK and the US, but has undertaken a number of projects in Ireland, including the Archive Box, a teaching resource for the Abbey’s Outreach and Education Department. She is Resident Dramaturg for New York University’s annual series of New Plays for Young Audiences. Cecily’s version of Lady Gregory’s play, The Golden Apple, performed by the Gort Youth Theatre at the 10th Autumn Gathering in 2004, was a success at The Ark in the 2008 Dublin Theatre Festival. Earlier this year ‘Drinking with Dorothy’, her adaption of the stories of Dorothy Parker, was presented successfully Off-Broadway in New York.

Dr Adrian Paterson is Lecturer in English at the National University of Ireland, Galway. A graduate of Worcester College, Oxford, and Trinity College, Dublin, his IRC fellowship at the Moore Institute at NUI Galway was entitled Perfect Pitch: Music in Irish Poetry from Moore to Muldoon, while Words for Music: W.B. Yeats and Musical Sense is forthcoming. Reflecting his interest in artistic interactions and the culture of the West of Ireland, he is a member of the Yeats 2015 Steering Group and the Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society, and is the curator of Yeats and the West, an exhibition featuring the work of J.M. Synge, Augusta Gregory, and Jack B. Yeats, now on display at Thoor Ballylee.

Dr Melissa Sihra is Assistant Professor of Drama and Theatre Studies at Trinity College Dublin and editor of Women in Irish Drama: A Century ofAuthorship and Representation (Palgrave Macmillan), co-editor (with Paul Murphy) of The Dreaming Body: Contemporary Irish Theatre (Colin Smythe Ltd & Oxford University Press) and co-editor (with Pirkko Koski) of The Global Meets the Local in Performance (Cambridge Scholars Press). She is completing a monograph on the Theatre of Marina Carr and researches and teaches in the fields of Playwriting, Feminism, gender, sexuality, Women in Performance and Irish Theatre. She is former President of the ‘Irish Society for Theatre Research’ (2011-2015) and recently delivered a one-day workshop on the life and works of Augusta Gregory for the Abbey Theatre’s Canon Camp.

Melissa will be the Chairperson for the Gathering this year; Colin Smythe had to cancel.

Colin Smythe graduated from Trinity College in 1963. Three years later, he started his publishing company, Colin Smythe Ltd, specialising in Irish literature, with books by or about authors such as W.B.Yeats, Lady Gregory, J.M.Synge, George Moore, G.W. Russell (better known by his pen-name AE), Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde, Oliver St John Gogarty, James Stephens, and William Carleton, and also on subjects such as the Irish epic myths, the fairy faith, ghosts, folklore, heraldry, orders of knighthood, diplomacy, politics, trout fishing, and parapsychology. He also is agent for the literary estates of a number of Irish authors, including George Moore, Lady Gregory and Oliver St John Gogarty. He was Terry Pratchett’s first publisher, publishing the first five Terry Pratchett novels, and later became Pratchett’s agent. In 1998 he received an Hon. LLD from Dublin University (Trinity College) for services to Irish Literature. He is a Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London.

Greg White, 75 last August, married to Jennifer nee Tattersall, lives presently in Bandon, Co.Cork. Greg is a great grandson of Francis FitzAdelm Persse and grand nephew of Lady Gregory.

Christened Gregory Francis White, clearly in deference to Lady Gregory and her brother Frank, Greg grew up in Cobh, Co Cork. A war child, from an early age, although outgoing and adventurous, Greg also then suffered the inner struggle for cultural identity, reflected in family division.

Greg’s life , not unlike that of Frank’s, was played out in two different theatres, one in the then Rhodesia as policeman, father, business man, where he was to overcome an early addiction to alcohol, and laterally here in Ireland as husband, psycho-therapist, writer, activist and teacher.

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Biographies 2015

John Banville was born in Wexford in 1945. His novels include The Book of Evidence, The Sea, which won the 2005 Man Booker Prize, Ancient Light and, most recently, The Blue Guitar (to be published 6 September 2015). He also writes crime novels under the pen-name Benjamin Black, including Christine Falls and Even the Dead. He has been awarded the Kafka Prize, the Austrian State Prize for Literature, and the Prince of Asturias Award. His screen-writing credits include The Sea and Albert Nobbs.

Moya Cannon was born in Co. Donegal, spent most of her adult life in Galway and now lives in Dublin. Her poems reflect preoccupations with our visceral attachment to the beauty of the earth, with music, with language itself, with archaeology and with the web of interdependences that sustain life on our planet. A winner of the Brendan Behan award and of the Lawrence O Shaughnessy award, she was 2011 Heimbold Professor of Irish Studies at Villanova University. Her most recent collection is Hands (Carcanet Press, Manchester, 2011). A forthcoming collection, Keats Lives, is due from Carcanet in Sept 2015.

Marc C. Conner is the Ballengee Professor of English and Associate Provost at Washington and Lee University in Virginia. He earned his Ph.D. in English at Princeton University, and has taught at Princeton and at the University of Notre Dame. His books include The Aesthetics of Toni Morrison (2000),Charles Johnson: The Novelist as Philosopher (2007), The Poetry of James Joyce Reconsidered (2012), and The New Territory: Ralph Ellison and the 21st Century (forthcoming, 2016). Marc directs a study abroad program to Ireland, which he has run seventimes since 2000, and he always brings his students to visit Coole and the Kiltartan Museum. Marc has also lectured and taught at the Yeats Summer School and the James Joyce School in Trieste.

The Curlew Theatre Company – Tegolin Knowland, Sean Coyne and Eamon Grennan - perform The Muse and Mr. Yeats, one of the ‘plays-for-voices’ devised, written, and directed by Eamon. Each of these takes a crucial element in Irish history and explores it in depth. ‘The Muse and Mr. Yeats’presents, one by one, the various women with whom W.B. Yeats was romantically involved. It sketches a portrait of Yeats-in-love. Eamon Grennan from Dublin, taught for many years at Vassar College and in the graduate writing programs of Columbia University and NYU. His most recent collections are There Now (Gallery Press, Ireland), Out of Sight: New & Selected Poems (Graywolf, USA) and But the Body (Gallery Press, Ireland). He has translated the poems of Leopardi (Dedalus, Ireland; and Princeton), and co-translated (with Rachel Kitzinger) Oedipus at Colonus (Oxford). For the past few years, he has been working on “plays for voices,” which have been performed in Ireland and the United States. He lives in Poughkeepsie and in Renvyle, Connemara.

Martin Dyar grew up in Swinford in County Mayo. His debut collection of poems Maiden Names (Arlen House, 2013 and 2015) was a book of the year selection in both the Guardian and The Irish Times, and was shortlisted for both the Pigott Poetry Prize and the Shine/Strong Award. He has also written a play, Tom Loves a Lord, about the Irish poet Thomas Moore. Martin won the Patrick Kavanagh Award in 2009, and the Strokestown International Award in 2001. He has also been the recipient of two Arts Council Bursary Awards for literature. A graduate of NUI Galway, and Trinity College Dublin (PhD), most recently he was a writer-in-residence at the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.

Joe Hassett is a lawyer with the firm Hogan Lovells in Washington. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and holds a Ph.D. in Anglo-Irish literature from University College Dublin. Oxford University Press brought out the paperback edition of his book W.B. Yeats and the Muses last June. Lilliput Press will publish his new book on the obscenity trials of Ulysses next year. Joe has spoken at the Autumn Gathering on several occasions, and has lectured at such venues as the Yeats Summer School, the James Joyce Summer Schools in Dublin and Trieste, the Princess Grace Irish Library, and Trinity College Dublin.

Cecily O’Neill is well known for her work in drama education and theatre, and is the author of several influential books in the field. She works mostly in the UK and the US, but has undertaken a number of projects in Ireland, including the Archive Box, a teaching resource for the Abbey’s Outreach and Education Department. She is Resident Dramaturg for New York University’s annual series of New Plays for Young Audiences. Cecily’s version of Lady Gregory’s play, The Golden Apple, performed by the Gort Youth Theatre at the 10th Autumn Gathering in 2004, was a success at The Ark in the 2008 Dublin Theatre Festival. Earlier this year ‘Drinking with Dorothy’, her adaption of the stories of Dorothy Parker, was presented successfully Off-Broadway in New York.

James Pethica teaches Irish Studies, Drama and Modernism at Williams College. A former Director of the Yeats International Summer School, he is currently at work on the authorized biography of Lady Gregory. His Lady Gregory’s Early Irish Writings, 1883-1893 will be published by Colin Smythe later this year.

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2014 Speakers

Margaret Farrell

is a great-grand niece of Lady Gregory. Her great-grandfather, Francis Fitz Adelm (Frank), was Augusta's younger brother with whom she was very close, describing him as a kind boy with a "....dancing light in his eye". A JP and architect, in 1889 Frank designed the Kiltartan National School, now the Kiltartan Gregory Museum. Margaret herself is a trained careers counsellor and has an MA in Psychology from Trinity College Dublin and an MSC in Psychological Assessment from Goldsmiths College, University of London. With a keen interest in her family history, she treasures moments spent in the West's magical landscape that so inspired the image-makers.

Nicholas Grene

is Professor of English Literature in Trinity College Dublin, a Senior Fellow of the College and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy. He has published widely on Shakespeare and on Irish literature. His most recent publications include Yeats’ Poetic Codes (Oxford University Press, 2008), the New Mermaids edition of Major Barbara (A.C. Black 2008), and Synge and Edwardian Ireland (Oxford University Press, 2011), co-edited with Brian Cliff. His book Home on the Stage: Domestic Spaces in Modern Drama will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2014.

Eamon Grennan

is from Dublin, and taught for many years at Vassar College, and has taught in the graduate writing programs of Columbia University and NYU. His most recent collections are Out of Sight: New & Selected Poems (Graywolf, USA), and But the Body (Gallery Press, Ireland). He has translated the poems of Leopardi (Dedalus, Ireland; and Princeton), and co-translated (with Rachel Kitzinger) Oedipus at Colonus (Oxford). For the past few years, he has been working on “plays for voices,” which have been performed in Ireland and the United States. He lives in Poughkeepsie and in Renvyle, Connemara.

Joseph M. Hassett

practices law in Washington with the firm of Hogan Lovells US LLP. Joe has tried jury and non-jury cases involving a wide variety of public and private issues, and has argued in the United States Supreme Court. His Conversation with Chief Justice John Roberts appeared on C-Span Television.

A graduate of Canisius College (B.A., summa cum laude), Harvard University (LL.B., cum laude) and University College, Dublin (M.A., Ph.D.). Hassett is engaged in a trial and appellate practice focused on corporate and securities matters and is outside counsel to the Embassy of Ireland in Washington. He is listed in Who’s Who in America and The Best Lawyers in America.

Hassett has written two books on W.B. Yeats, the most recent of which, W.B.Yeats and the Muses, was published by Oxford University Press in 2010. He has lectured on Irish writers at such venues as the National Library of Ireland, Yeats International Summer School in Sligo, the James Joyce Summer School in Dublin, the Joyce Trieste Summer School, the Princess Grace Irish Library in Monaco, and Oxford University.

Ann Marie Horan

Ann Marie Horan has been a performer, writer and director since she first set foot on the Taibhdhearc stage at the age of six. She worked for many years in RTÉ, taking part in such flagship productions as Harbour Hotel, The Clinic and Fair City. Ann Marie has freelanced in Theatre and TV/Films all over Ireland, the UK and Europe. Glacann sí páirt Frances anois i Ros na Rún do TG4 (She currently plays the part of Frances in TG4’s Ros na Rún).

Niall MacCoitir

grew up in Dublin in a bilingual environment with a love of Irish culture, history and nature. Having read widely on these subjects, he began writing about the folklore of Irish nature and wildlife when he realised how little had been published on the topic. After graduating from University College Dublin, he now works in Fingal County Council. His published books include Irish Trees: Myths, Legends and Folklore, (2003); Irish Wild Plants: Myths, Legends and Folklore, (2006); andIreland’s Animals: Myths, Legends and Folklore, (2010), all by Collins Press.

Marie Mullen

has received the Harvey’s Irish Theatre Award for Best Supporting Actress, The Sunday Independent Actress of the Year Award (1984) and The Evening Herald Actress of the Year Award. She won best actress in The Irish Times/ESB Irish Theatre Awards 2004 for her roles in the Druid Synge productions of The Well of the Saints and The Tinker’s Wedding. She received a Tony Award for her performance in The Beauty Queen of Leenane. Her film work includes The Butcher Boy, Dancing at Lughnasa, When Brendan Met Trudy and Disco Pigs.

Dr Anna Pilz

is a specialist in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Irish drama. She studied at the European University Viadrina (Germany) and The University of Liverpool. Her doctoral thesis examined the relationship between playwright Augusta Gregory and her audiences. Most recently, she has published articles on Gregory’s class politics and short stories. In October 2014, she will take up a two-year IRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at UCC to research and write a monograph on Trees, Inheritance and Estates in Irish Writing. She is co-editor of a collection of essays on Irish Women’s Writing, 1878-1922: Advancing the Cause of Liberty, forthcoming with Manchester University Press in 2015.

John Quinn

was born in Co. Meath. He began his career as a teacher, but later became a radio producer and broadcaster with RTÉ. He has won many prestigious awards for his radio work. John is also an accomplished author of fiction and non-fiction, including children’s books. His most recent publication is Credo (Veritas, 2014) – personal testimonies of faith. The Curious Mind (Veritas, 2009) is a collection of some of his most entertaining and provoking radio interviews and programmes. His childhood memoir, Goodnight Ballivor, I’ll Sleep in Trim (Veritas, 2008), has also been the subject of a TG4 television documentary.

Lois Tobin

A native of Hull, Lois graduated as a teacher of Home Economics in Manchester and has a B.A. in Archaeology from UCG. Past President of the Irish Association of Home Economics Teachers, Past President of the Irish BPW, she was long-time Chair of Galway West Family History. Lois c-founded the Autumn Gatherings with the late Sheila O'Donnellan and Mary McDonagh. Her enthusiasm, energy and dedication to the Gathering have not only ensured its success and survival over the last twenty years but established its integrity as a premium literary event.

Sean Tobin

studied mathematics in UCG and Manchester University. For many years head of the Mathematics department in UCG/NUIG, he is now Professor Emeritus. He has been an Honorary Member of the Gathering Committee from the beginning.

A remarkably elegant woman, tall, smiling and kind, Sheila Crotty came from a hardworking Dublin family. Her father worked with the Land Commission while her mother nursed in Holles Street. During the war years, Sheila and two of her sisters (there were five sisters and three boys in the family), helped their mother in the Red Cross, comforting refugees as they came ashore at Dun Laoghaire. Later, the three girls trained as nurses at St Vincent’s and because of their hard work, they were known as the Crotty Sisters, or, more forcibly, as the ‘Panzer Division’.

On marrying her husband Kevin in the early 1950s, they moved to Galway. Having always been interested in literature, she immediately enjoyed the wealth of associations of places, houses and landscape in County Galway with many of the great Irish writers in the early 20th century; Coole Park, Thoor Ballylee, Ardrahan and Loughrea, all resonating the memories and works of W.B. Yeats, G.B. Shaw, Edward Martyn, Sean O’Casey and An Túr Gloine, who decorated St Brendan’s cathedral. In Galway city, at Bowling Green, there was the home of Nora Barnacle.

Sheila believed this literary heritage should be celebrated. With Lois Tobin and Mary McDonagh, she set up the Autumn Gathering. She became a guide at Nora Barnacle’s home, and presented a one-woman show at An Taibhdhearc Theatre, telling delighted audiences the life of Lady Gregory. Despite losing her young husband after a prolonged illness, she was also a prominent member of the ICA and taught elocution in schools. As a mother of six finding herself as soul breadwinner, she opened a craft shop on Quay Street, Galway. Continuing her enthusiasm for the arts, she set up the Quay Street Festival with Judy Greene and others.

Galway was lucky to have attracted this creative and hard working woman. She enriched the lives of many.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam dhílis.

Biographies 2013

Prof. Angela Bourke MRIA– Author and AcademicEmeritus Professor of Irish-Language Studies at UCD, Angela Bourke has published widely on oral cultureand literature. Her books include Caoineadh na dTrí Muire (1983), a study of the Crucifixion in oralreligious poetry; The Burning of Bridget Cleary: A True Story(1999),winner of the 2001 IrishTimes LiteraturePrize for Non-Fiction; the biography Maeve Brennan: Homesick at The New Yorker(2004), and as jointeditor, The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, volsivandv: Irish Women's Writing and Traditions(2002).She publishes articles, reviews and short stories in Irish and English; has held visiting academicappointments in the US, UK and Japan, and is a regular contributor to radio and television.

Prof. Marc C. ConnerProfessor Marc Conner received his Ph.D. from Princeton University, and has taught at Princeton and theUniversity of Notre Dame. His books include The Aesthetics of Toni Morrison, Charles Johnson: The Novelistas Philosopher, and The Poetry of James Joyce Reconsidered. He has published many essays and bookreviews on American and Irish Modernism. A frequent visitor to Ireland, he directs a study abroad programwhich includes a visit to Coole and the Kiltartan Museum. He has also lectured and taught at the YeatsSummer School. He was just appointed Associate Provost at Washington & Lee University.

Lelia DoolanLelia Doolan is a former ArtisticDirector of the Abbey Theatre and former Chair person of the Irish FilmBoard. She has been in turn actor, producer and director in theatre and film as well as an educator andjournalist. Chair of the Solas Arthouse Cinema project in Galway, she is co-founder and director of theGalway Film Fleadh. Her brilliant documentary “Bernadette; Notesona Political Journey” was screeenedat the BFI London Film Festival and the Film Fleadh.

Sr. Mary de Lourdes FahyMary de Lourdes Fahy R.S.M.is a member of the Mercy order, in Gort. A graduate of UCG, she is well-knownas a local historian and teacher. Among her publications are Education in the Diocese of Kilmacduaghin the Nineteenth Century(1972) based on her M.A.thesis; Kiltartan: many leaves one root(2004), a detailedhistory of her native Parishof Kiltartan; and Near Quiet Waters(2007), a history of the Mercy Nuns in Gortand of their branch houses in Clare and California. She supervises the Kiltartan Museum in theschool house built by Sir William Gregory, where she was herself a pupil.

Hedy Gibbons-LynottHedy lives in Clarenbridge, Co.Galway where she is a founding member and chairperson of ClarenbridgeLocal Heritage Group. She is a recent winner of Cuirt’s International Festival of Literature Prize for Memoir.Much of her work has been broadcast on RTE’s Sunday Miscellany and Lyric’s Quiet Quarter, andpublished in their subsequent anthologies. Chapters from her Memoir have been published in CountyLines (2006) and on the internet (2011).She has also contributed to the recently published Oyster Country:A Community Journal of Claren bridge and Surrounding District (2010) and is Writer-in-Residence on twointergenerational projects run by NUIG.

Professor Meg Harper – University of LimerickMargaret Mills Harperis Glucksman Professor of Contemporary Writing in English at the University ofLimerick. She specialises in Irish literature, literary modernisms, and poetry of the long twentieth century.Her works include ‘Wisdom of Two’(Oxford2006), on the occult collaboration between W.B.Yeats and hiswife George Hyde Lees, and ‘The Aristocracy of Art’ (LSU Press 1990), an examination of theauto biographical fictions of James Joyce and the American novelist Thomas Wolfe. Meg Harperis co-editor of two volumes in the four-volume series ‘Yeats’ Vision” Papers’ (Macmillan1992 and2001). WithCatherine Paul of Clemson University,she has edited ‘A Vision’ (1925) as Volume 13 of ‘The Collected Worksof W.B. Yeats’ (Scribner 2008) and is now preparing the 1937 version of ‘A Vision’ for the same series.

Cora HarrisonCora Harrison, an ative of Co.Cork and a graduate in languages from UCC,lives near the Burren, an areawhose landscape and history form the background to her medieval crime series for adults, the ten booksof The Burren Mysteries. She has also published thirty six books for children and young adults, mostnotably the Drumshee Timeline series depicting the history of Ireland from Iron Age times to the present.

Nuala HayesNuala Hayes is an Actor, Story teller and independent Radio Producer. She trained at the Abbey Theatreand has toured extensively in plays by many of the great Irish Play wrights. Her interest in story tellingbegan about 20 years ago, when she founded Two Chairs Company with musician Ellen Cranitch toexplore words and music in performance, including Irish Legends, Myths and Folklore. Nuala has alsobeen involved in the collection of oral stories in places such as Cape Clear Island. She plays the part ofFrankie Byrne, in the hugely successful touring production of ‘Dear Frankie’ by Niamh Gleeson. She hascollaborated extensively with musicians,including Anne Marie O’Farrell and clarinet player, Paul Roe.

Kevin HigginsKevin Higgins is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary eventsin Galway City. He has published threecollections of poems: The Boy With No Face (2005), Time Gentlemen, Please (2008) and Frightening NewFurniture (2010) all with Salmon Poetry. His work also features in the anthology Identity Parade – NewBritish and Irish Poets(Bloodaxe, 2010). Mentioning The War, a collection of his essays and reviews, waspublished by Salmon in April 2012. Kevin’s fourth collection of poetry, The Ghost In The Lobby, will bepublished in March2014.

Sinead McCooleSinead McCoole has written extensively on Irish history during the period 1900-1923. She is currentlyworking on Easter Widows,the untold story of the widows of the 1916 Leaders. She is Director of The JackieClarke Collection, 1,Collector, 100,000 items spanning 400 years of Irish History.

Susan Millar DuMarsSusan Millar DuMars has published three collections of poetry, Big Pink Umbrella (2008), DreamsforBreakfast (2010) and most recently The God Thing (2013), all with Salmon Poetry. Her work features inLanding Places, Dedalus’ 2010 anthology of immigrant poetry written in Ireland; and also in The Best OfIrish Poetry 2010. Her first full collection of short stories Lights in the Distance was published by DoirePress in 2010. One of her stories features in the acclaimed Doire Press anthology Galway Stories. Susan isco-organiser of Over The Edge literary events.

Geraldine MillsA native of Galway, Geraldine Mills is a poet and short story writer with four collection of poetry Unearthing Your Own (Bradshaw Books 2001); Toil the Dark Harvest (Bradshaw Books 2004) and An Urgency of Stars (Arlen House 2010) which was awarded a Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship. Her fourth collection of poetry Other Side of Longing a collaboration with U.S. poet Lisa C. Taylor was the Gerson Reading choice for the University of Connecticut April 2010. She has also written two collections of short fiction, Lick of the Lizard (ArlenHouse 2005) and The Weight of Feathers (ArlenHouse 2007). Nuala Ní Chonchúir was born in Dublin in 1970; she lives in East Galway. Her fourth short story collection Mother America was published by New Island in 2012; The Irish Times said of it: ‘Ní Chonchúir’ sprecisely made but deliciously sensual stories markher as a carrier of Edna O’ Brien’s flame. ’Her dé but novel You (New Island, 2010) was called ‘a gem’ by The Irish Examiner and ‘a heart-warmer’ by The Irish Times. A chap book of short stories is forthcoming in the US in September 2013 and Nuala’s second novel will be published in spring 2014.

Cynthia O’Connor – GenealogistCynthia O’ Connor moved from her native Indiana, to Galway in 2007 and graduated with a degree inheritage studies from GMIT, Galway. As Genealogy Development Officer for Ireland Reaching Out(Irelandxo), her role centres on supporting heritage-based activities in local communities. Her academicresearch seeks to stimulate critical discourse, raise awareness and reflect on our social and cultural historythrough the use of folklore and oral traditions.

Dr. Eimear O’Connor HRHA – Art Historian, Author, Lecturer and CuratorDr. Eimear O’Connor is an arthistorian, author, lecturer and curator who specialises in the developmentof Irish art within the complex political, social and economic contexts of the 20th Century. She is a ResearchAssociate at TRIARC – Irish Art Research Centre Trinity College Dublin and has lectured on Irish art inuniversities and cultural in stitutions in Ireland and America. Author of several reviews and articles, hermost recent book is Sean Keating: Art Politics and Building the Irish Nation (Irish Academic Press: Kildare,2013) She is also editor of Irish Women Artists 1800-2000: Familiar but Unknown (Four Courts Press:Dublin, 2010). O’Connorwas elected an Honorary member of the Royal Hibernian Academy in2010.

Dr. Cecily O’NeillDr.Cecily O’Neill is an internationally recognized authority on drama and arts education and is the authoror editor of several influential books in that field. Her work is mostly in the UK and the US, but she hasundertaken a number of projects in Ireland,including a teaching resource for the Abbey’s Outreach andEducation Department. Her version of Lady Gregory’s The Golden Apple, performed by the Gort YouthTheatre at the Tenth Autumn Gathering in 2004, was a success at The Ark in the 2008 Dublin TheatreFestival.Currently she is an Associate Artist with the Unicorn Children’s Theatre and Resident Dramaturgfor New York University’s annual Series of Plays for Young Audiences.

John QuinnJohn Quinn was born in Co. Meath.He began his career as a teacher, but later became a radio producerand broadcaster with RTÉ. He has won many prestigious awards for his radio work. John is also anaccomplished author of fiction and non-fiction, including children’sbooks.His most recent publicationis The Curious Mind (Veritas, 2009) – a collection of some of his most entertaining and provoking radiointerviews and programmes. His childhood memoir,Goodnight Ballivor, I’ll Sleep in Trim (Veritas, 2008),has also been the subject of a TG4 television documentary.

Elizabeth T. ScottElizabeth T.Scott is a graduate in social science, public policy and public administration from Universitede Ottawa. Elizabeth grew up in a large family on a farm nearthe Hill of Aughrim, Co. Galway. Whiletraining as a nurse in Germany she met her Canadian husband. As a member of the Irish Writers’ Centreand a past student of Some Blind Alleys, Elizabeth has written a collection of twelve short stories inaddition to her academic writings one migration policies.